Conference 7.286::digital

	there's alot of stuff at http://www.cray.com/

	_kelley

    Hi,
    
    One of the ads from Cray brags about one of their faster systems and
    the fact that it uses Digital's Alpha chips for its processors.
    
    So it's possible the system you're competing with has the Alpha in
    it.
    
    Just a FYI
    
    Jim Graft

No - as he says in the base note, it's a SPARC-based system.  (Cray uses
both Alpha and SPARC.)

			Steve

    
    
    
    You definitely want to be careful on this one.  Since Cray is our
    business partner, I imagine you will have to walk fairly softly.
    
    
    
    Mike

    >You definitely want to be careful on this one.  Since Cray is our
    >business partner, I imagine you will have to walk fairly softly.
    
    I've worked with Arlan in the past (he's an OpenVMS Partner).  I
    can assure you he's very good at diplomacy.  (After all, he's a
    survivor of the Operating System Wars! %^)
    
    					andrew

>    You definitely want to be careful on this one.  Since Cray is our
>    business partner, I imagine you will have to walk fairly softly.
    
Today, *everyone* seems to be both a business partner as well as a 
competitor. 

We are not delivering any competitive info to the customer on Cray, we just
want to know what our strengths are vs the competition in responding to this
RFP so we can highlight them. They have described in the RFP what size CRAY 
they tested and the percentage of CPU & IO utilization they observed. They 
want the RFP responses to propose at least the same system capacity, but we 
didn't know how the 12 CPU 6400 stacked up for comparisons...


Arlan

	although the distinction is subtle, the 6400 is a product of
	CRS (Cray Research Superservers), a subsidiary of Cray
	Research, Inc....the former is a joint venture with Sun, the
	latter is our partner on the T3D MPP Alpha monster....reading
	between the lines, CRS seems to be Cray's attempt to branch
	into the commercial marketplace since their traditional niche
	may be drying up....

	fwiw, the 6400 looks like an overgrown SPARCcenter (up to 64
	processors and 16GB mem!), but I'd be quite curious to see
	how well this thing scales to real workloads over a certain
	number of processors, especially for a TP application...

	_kelley

This is a press release from Cray Research, Inc.  It seems that many people saw
the notification that "Cray Computer" just liquidated and assumed it was "Cray
Research" in Eagan, Minnesota.  These are two separate companies.  The only
commonality is that Seymour Cray started both of them. Cray Research, one of
Digital's main competitors in the technical computing area, is quite alive in
the marketplace. 

<<check out the third paragraph for details>>

=============================================================================
Cray Res. to Take One-Time Charges Exceeding $100 Million in Q2    July 18
FINANCIAL WATCH                                                    HPCwire
=============================================================================

  Eagan, Minn. -- Expecting to absorb one-time write-offs and restructuring
charges exceeding $100 million in the second quarter ended June 30, Cray
Research, Inc. is scheduled to report its full second quarter financial
results on July 27. The charges, which are primarily non-cash in nature,
are chiefly related to inventories and internal equipment.

  The company had previously indicated that charges were likely in
the second quarter but would probably be less than the $41 million of
restructuring and one-time charges taken in Q1. "Continued refinement of
our strategy, and analysis of Cray's asset requirements in the future led
to today's announcement," said Cray's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
J. Phillip Samper. "As we have said before, we look at 1995 as a year of
transition. We anticipate operating losses in the first half of the year,
with improved performance for the second half. As we continue the
transformation of Cray Research, our analysis may indicate that further
restructuring activity is necessary this year."

  Separately, a Cray Research spokeperson reaffirmed that it is unrelated
to similarly named 1989 spinoff Cray Computer Corp., Colorado Springs, CO.
The spokesperson said that Minnesota-based Cray Research has been receiving
calls from investors and prospects requesting clarification following Cray
Computer's July 14 announcement that it will liquidate the company as part
of its Chapter 11 plan. Cray Computer filed under Chapter 11 of the U.S.
Bankruptcy Code in March 1995.

  For more information, contact Steve Conway at 612/683-7133 or Brad Allen
at 612/683-7395, both of Cray Research.
=============================================================================

Jim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Burton
Product Manager for Fortran on UNIX and LSF (Load Sharing Facility)
Digital Equipment Corporation		Phone:	(603) 881-6004
110 Spit Brook Road ZKO3-2/U20		FAX:	(603) 881-6059
Nashua, New Hampshire, 03062, U.S.A.   	e-mail:	burton@hpcgrp.enet.dec.com

View our Web pages: 
   DEC Fortran 90   -  http://www.digital.com/info/hpc/f90/
   LSF              -  http://www.digital.com/info/hpc/software.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

>        <<< Note 3674.8 by HPCGRP::BURTON "DIGITAL INTERNAL USE ONLY" >>>
>                   -< Cray Computer is *not* Cray Research >-
>
>This is a press release from Cray Research, Inc.  It seems that many people saw
>the notification that "Cray Computer" just liquidated and assumed it was "Cray
>Research" in Eagan, Minnesota.  These are two separate companies.  The only
>commonality is that Seymour Cray started both of them. Cray Research, one of
>Digital's main competitors in the technical computing area, is quite alive in
>the marketplace. 

    Which Cray was announced on NPR this morning as being bought by SGI?
    bob

Cray Research - Cray Computer is no longer around.  I wonder what this will
do to the Cray T3E which use Alpha chips?

				Steve

    Cray Research in Eagan MN was the subject of the NPR story this
    morning...Cray Computer in Colorado Springs CO is no more. Their
    property was liquidated last Oct. and they recently finished selling
    some of the patents they held.

    Ugh; if SGI does drop Alpha from Cray (likely...), that's one
    of the very few out there.  Olivetti doesn't seem to be
    interested in Alpha anymore. 

    Digital can provide quantity 1000 EV5 parts *today* to Cray Research.
    
    SGI can provide maybe quantity *1* R10000 at maybe 200MHz parts
    *today* to Cray Research.
    
    
    SGI is already down almost 10%, still on the pounding downward track
    where people don't expect MIPS to deliver the vapour anytime soon.
    
    Cray is already up 25%.
    
    
    About half a billion in outstanding current product orders from
    Cray Research customers.  Maybe SGI is stupid enough to kill that
    off while they turn Cray Research into a MIPS vendor.  If you were king
    of their forest, would you be that stupid?
    
    								-mr. bill

    I agree Bill.  The RISC CPU makers (IBM, SGI, Digital,...) and
    sound decisions concerning that business tend to be mutually
    exclusive; I think there's just too much ego involved.  .02 Kratz
    

    re -.1
    
    <<< I think there's just too much ego involved.
    
    Ego? Hey man... M.O.N.E.Y.
    
    intel is your basic monopoly. RISC is your basic cut-throat, next
    generation, own the market, too many players, dance.
    
    -Mike Z.

    Not to mention that Cray also sells SPARC based parallel machines. 
    They got this product line when they bought Floating Point Systems of
    Beaverton Oregon.

IMO, Cray has invested too much time and money to just "dump" Alpha tomorrow
for vaporware... theoretical performance claims withstanding.

Besides, I bet the soft error rate of MIPS R10000 sucks.  :-)

- jeff

A bit too late with that suggestion - see .12.

The word I have from folks formerly with Cray is that SGI is going to be
mighty unhappy with their new toy.

					Steve

re: .20

>The word I have from folks formerly with Cray is that SGI is going to be
>mighty unhappy with their new toy.

    I wouldn't exactly expect "folks _formerly_ with Cray" to be an
unbiased group.  Not that I necessarily disagree with the prediction. :-)

	Steve

Bob Palmer was asked about Alpha and Cray/SGI recently.

From http://www.imc.das.dec.com/abu :
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following article appeared in the June 96 issue of Upside Magazine. 
...
Bob Palmer 

An interview by Eric Nee 
...
Upside: You're actually losing some of your Alpha customers, aren't you? Isn't
Cray likely to-- 

Palmer: [Cray CEO] Phil Samper just left the company, but he told me when they
did the deal that they have to have the Alpha processor to get the performance
out of [their supercomputer].

Upside: You don't see that changing now that Silicon Graphics has bought Cray? 

Palmer: I don't see that changing. If anything, I have an opportunity to talk
to my friend Ed McCracken about how he's now got three different architectures.
He's got UltraSparc on the low end of Cray's line, he's got Alpha on the high
end and he's got his own Mips architecture. I think there is clearly a way to
coalesce all those architectures around Alpha. 
...

and then we see that Cray is sending the SPARC-based servers back to Sun:

<><><><><><><><>  T h e   V O G O N   N e w s   S e r v i c e  <><><><><><><><>
 Edition : 3558              Tuesday 21-May-1996            Circulation :  4265 
VNS COMPUTER NEWS:                            [Tracy Talcott, VNS Computer Desk]
==================                            [Nashua, NH, USA                 ]

 Sun Microsystems - To buy some assets of Cray Research
	{The Wall Street Journal, 20-May-96, p. B5}
   Cray is a unit of Silicon Graphics.  Terms of the proposed transaction
 weren't disclosed.  Sun said the assets it will acquire include certain
 servers and related technology.  The big plum in the deal for Sun is Cray's
 powerful CS6400 server.